Fluffle

This is a difficult topic I think. I do understand the appeal of ingame recognition. Now imagine we would have ingame recognition for about 200 people. Each of them having their own individual ingame recognition. Imagine a book/ledger/whatever in the game with about 200 names. I don't find that thought all too exciting I must admit. On the other hand I really doubt that would work as an incentive to donate on a large scale. Yes for some maybe. But you need to keep in mind that the majority of voters on the polls would not even spend $1 on this. And I don't know but to me it feels wrong to offer something additional to those who wouldn't even spend $1 on this when we already have 45 backers, some VERY generous among them, who did not pledge just to get immortalized into the game. In the end you should donate here because you'd like to see the Black Isle Bastards come true. Not because you'd like to get some ingame recognition. This cause is rather for people who'd support Obsidian with additional funds but need an incentive to do so. So the Black Isle Bastards themselves are already the incentive to give additional money to Obsidian. And the thought of having an incentive for the incentive... that just doesn't feel right to me. This is a community project, it's not about individuals. That's my interpretation. I am not excluding some form of ingame recognition but I simply cannot make any promises on this, not at this point anyway.

New captain? I see... my crew is mutinying!

It was our very generous anonymous donator who only donates in batches of $333 That was his or her 3rd donation of that kind, thank you very much!

Thank you very much! Donation received! Welcome on board

In this particular case I know for sure that those $900 were SPECIFICALLY given to support the Black Isle Bastards. And those $900 would NOT have been donated as a "general donation option". So please be careful what you take as "proof". There are some very highly dedicated and generous donators who can afford to donate big sums and do so because they want to support the Black Isle Bastards and see them come true.

Thank you very much to the new donators and welcome on board Arrr!

@algroth and your post above was the 333rd reply on this thread... I'm getting suspicious!

The person who already had donated $333 increased their pledge by the same amount. Thus they have donated the magic amount of $666

Ahoy my salty mates, in one night our funds leaped from 25% to 50% thanks to two VERY generous and dedicated donators. A huge thank you to the two of you and to everyone who has donated to our cause. Our spirits have risen, our hope has returned, and our dreams might finally come true. We have mastered half of our way. A big thank you to everyone! Now, onward I say, let's take on the second half of our goal!

That could be an issue if copyrights for those characters come into play. I know for one that Avellone spoke about not being able to include Ravel or a Ravel-like character into Tides of Numenera precisely because the Planescape setting and the characters of Torment were not owned by them at the time. If this was an issue for him I can see how the above could be an issue with Obsidian. Which sucks, of course. Yes, I shared the same concern which is why I talked to Aarik about this too. I presented him the example from illathid: "So for example you'd have Ferenc the greenish coastal Aumaua. He'd be a big angry brute who used to work for Dunryd Row as an enforcer." That would be a reference to "Frank Horrigan" from Fallout. And Aarik said to his opinion that would not cause IP/copyright issues. Personally I think if the reference is subtle enough and if you don't use the names of the original characters then it should work. But if any of the other developers thinks that it actually is too risky, of course then it wouldn't work. So, no promises As I said, it's a maybe.

So I asked Aarik about modelling the Black Isle Bastards after villains from the Black Isle games. In theory he doesn't see any reason right off the bat why that should not be possible. But he said that Bobby and Adam might have thoughts on that. So I would say it is a maybe. Also there's not a definite answer yet about the game credits. Aarik said it was more likely that whole groups are mentioned in the credits than individuals. That would concern option A) from the donators recognition options. The whole problem that I see here is that I can only get definite answers on things once we already have the $5000. But I need to know some things in advance to motivate people to donate in the first place. It's a bit of a problematic situation. On the other hand our project is based on the faith in Obsidian that they will turn our pirate crew into a remarkable and memorable encounter, whichever way they'd decide to implement them.

Hi dukeisaac, thank you I think it's very admirable when someone can just barely spare a few dollars and decides to donate them to our cause. We would be happy to welcome you to be part of this if you decided to donate to our cause.

@Taurus Hi there, that sounds great Thank you for your support. @Boeroer That's how you convince your wife, well done! And thank you :D Hope, you'll have a great time in Bukarest with your family

Hi Dr <3 This project here is a private project. The community is collecting money to buy a pirate crew. This project has nothing to do with Fig or Kickstarter. And thereby it has nothing to do with your individual pledges on the Fig campaign. I only use the word "kickstart" in the title to make it clear that this is like a kickstarter project. If we fail to raise $5000 by the deadline (20th April) then I will refund the donations for this private project. That has nothing to do with any other pledges anywhere else.

I will now set a deadline, starting today it is going to be 50 days. It's a little bit earlier than the deadline mentioned in Update 20 of the Fig campaign because by default I will refund ALL donations. But if some people would then like to buy a lesser tier together we would still have some time to realize that. So deadline is set on April 20th 2017 23.59PM.

Kraken for super pet! (I know, I know.. but still I like kraken )

Where did they set the deadline? I haven't seen any official post about that yet. Edit: Ok, I have found the post. They mention the deadline in Update 20 of the Fig campaign.

Actually it was a friend who made that channel I can't take credit for that^^ But he did give me access so I can make changes if need arises. @JerekKrueger welcome to the club of donators :D You are awesome as is everyone else who donated, thank you!

Now also available on YOUTUBE! Mwuahahahaha

Good! Just shared that clip on Facebook. Thank you! Yes! Good idea! Spread the news! Everyone to everywhere! :D

Right. And thank you very much for your contribution Also thank you to @Idara for donating

No offense to the developers, but I find this strange. They're ok showcasing themselves in public on camera all day, but they're so private they're against referencing themselves in a game they're making? That doesn't make any sense to me. I'm a private person in real life, and I rather do the latter than the former. Hi bonarbill, please keep in mind that we do not know the reasons. I would at this point ask everyone to not speculate about the reasons. If you really want to know you can try to contact them and ask. You're already making an assumption about the devs namely that they're too private while at the same time you give reasons why this wouldn't make sense. Well then it would be for other reasons obviously. I would ask everyone to respect the developers wish on this. In my opinion they don't have to give reasons for this or "justify" themselves. But if you think otherwise then please contact them directly yourself. I would dislike to talk and speculate about them while they're not here themselves.

Okay, seems it could work. I'll ask Aarik about it this week For the record: I have never played any Fallout games. That's why nothing seemed unusual to me about your example. But when I looked up "Frank Horrigan" I understood the reference. That's how the references should work. I am still curious though, maybe I lack some imagination but could you do some examples for Belhifet and Ravel? Belhifet could be a fire godlike, couldn't he? Given the new looks of fire godlikes:

What I would propose now is this: I would open a new thread where we can collect ideas on the pirate crew members. Everyone can submit their ideas on individual crew members just like Ninjamestari did. And then we can let the forum reactions speak for themselves. Of course, everything would just be suggestions. Always keep that in mind! Obsidian is always free to deviate from our suggestions. Edit: On another thought, maybe I shouldn't open a new thread. Because we already have 2 threads about the pirates and one additional thread about the forum badge. Opening too many threads will harm our cause more than help it. So better just post your suggestions here

I still think a call out to some of the outstanding Black Isle NPCs of old would be a great way to do it. Ravel, Frank Horrigan, Belhifet, etc. rather than actual employees. But that's just me. I for myself would not be fond of that, unless done subtly. Too many references to other IPs might not help with my immersion into this game. I'd rather create a very unique bunch of buccaneers, with their own personalities and character traits. We could use this forum to discuss and develop the individuals in this pirate party as well. Yes, subtlety would be the key to that idea. Hence why I asked for examples, I'd like to see if there can be ways to make it very subtle but that you can still see the reference. On the individuals of the crew: The general approach to this is, that we leave that to Obsidian, HOWEVER we can hand in suggestions of course. And I think Ninjamestari did that already for example, on page 9 of this thread (at the top). You can hand in suggestions anytime, just be aware of the fact that they're just that, suggestions.